London –Confined to cages, wearing monkey masks and holding signs that read, "China Southern Ships Monkeys for Deadly Experiments", PETA members converged on One Whitehall Place on Tuesday morning–where Tan Wangeng, president and CEO of China Southern Airlines, was speaking at an aviation conference–to demand that the airline stop shipping monkeys to laboratories, where they are imprisoned in tiny cages, force-fed chemicals, crippled, cut into and killed.

"By shipping monkeys destined for experimentation, China Southern Airlines is one of only two major airlines still complicit in a bloody business that condemns tens of thousands of primates to confinement, mutilation, poisoning and death in laboratories", says PETA Campaign Coordinator Kirsty Henderson. "The public has told China Southern loud and clear that cruelty doesn't fly and that they'll choose other carriers until the airline stops sending monkeys to endure pain and misery in experiments."

Every year, more than 15,000 monkeys and other primates are transported from countries such as China to the EU and the US to be imprisoned in laboratories and tormented in experiments. In the UK, more than 1,000 monkeys are imported into the EU each year. Some are bred in captivity on cramped, squalid monkey factory farms, while others are stolen from their families in the wild. The traumatised monkeys are crammed into small wooden crates and transported in the backs of lorries and then in the dark and terrifying cargo holds of planes, often on passenger flights just below unsuspecting customers.

China Southern and Air France are the only two major airlines in the world that continue to ship primates to laboratories. British Airways, Aer Lingus, Qantas, United Airlines, American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Philippine Airlines and dozens of others refuse to take part in this violent industry and have prohibited the transportation of primates headed for experiments.

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